


What Would I Do Without You

by mmbucky



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, Romance, ziam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-30
Updated: 2013-01-30
Packaged: 2017-11-27 13:03:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/662304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmbucky/pseuds/mmbucky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liam is often full of doubts, wondering whether or not he is taking the correct stepping stones through life or pursuing happiness like he's supposed to, but then Zayn is there to remind him that there is no rule book and happiness can take on any shape you let it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Would I Do Without You

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the glorious "What Would I Do Without You" by Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors. Instantly made me think of a gorgeous future Liam and Zayn, and I recommend giving it a listen while reading :)  
> http://drewholcomb.bandcamp.com/track/what-would-i-do-without-you

It was hard to remember what life had been like before the whirlwind picked up and never slowed down.

Four yeses and four new best friends still felt brand new, and it had been long enough now that Liam should’ve been used to it, but he often still felt like he was trying to ride a horse with no reins. He wasn’t sure how it had all happened or why life always had to fly so fast, and when he looked around it seemed as though everybody else had the handbook tucked safely in their back pocket and he was the one person who didn’t get a copy. He had gone into this blind and all he knew how to do was improvise and hope for the best.

It was difficult to grasp the fact that he was here today watching one of his closest childhood friends, once so wayward and wild, vow to be a good husband to the person he loved, and Liam felt proud seeing how far he had come. It had been so long since football in the street and copying each others homework, and it made Liam think about all the extraordinary things the last decade had given him. A shining career, awards, broken records and the opportunity to meet the kind of people who don’t even seem real until you shake their hand. Audiences stared up at him and waited for him to sing, and even now Liam often failed to comprehend that fact. There was a lot that still felt unfamiliar and impossible in his mind, and at times it was easier to just switch into autopilot and let another decade slip past than to try and understand how somebody who used to be so ordinary was now something else entirely. It was during the rare slow moments, like watching one of his best friends take the first steps into his new life, when Liam was reminded of just how foreign some of life’s most routine traditions seemed to him and just how unusual his world really was.

It was hard to believe that they were all closing in on thirty.

Sometimes he felt so old, like he was years ahead of his body. When he cleared the career clutter from his consciousness the small things were what shocked him the most, like his childhood friends graduating, then getting engaged, having babies and buying houses with their partners. He realised that time and youth had snuck out the window while he wasn’t looking, and he often struggled to figure out whether he had lived his youth at all or just kept his head down and worked right through until it was dust settling on the road behind him.

He came apart on his 25th birthday because being in his mid-20’s meant that he was justified in feeling old, but sometimes he still felt so young. With so few major milestones under his belt he felt pressured to catch up and be normal. He wondered whether he was missing something vital that everybody else had managed to discover along the way, and he asked himself if their ordinary life was the dream after all. A humble house in a quiet neighbourhood with a company car parked in the driveway and a dog bouncing towards him when he arrived home. Perhaps that was what life was meant to be like, and Liam often felt like a fraud. He had circled the globe repeatedly while other people had never left the city they lived in, and he wondered whether maybe he’d boarded the wrong train some time during his teens and had just taken the ride instead of getting off and finding his way home. Maybe he was meant to board the train to a mortgage and a desk job, but maybe that was okay.

Liam often found himself full of questions and worries, wondering whether or not he was taking the right stepping stones through life that would guide him to happiness, but then he was reminded that happiness took on a different shape for him. Across the room from where Liam stood by the bar and with impeccable timing as always, Zayn turned his head away from a handful of their friends and caught Liam’s eye with ease. A deliberate smile over his shoulder told Liam that Zayn could tell he was being watched and he knew just where Liam would be, as always.

It was hard to remember what love had been like before Zayn. 

Long ago Liam had begun to doubt if he had ever actually been in love before, and when he looked back on awkward teenage years and relationships that turned out to be loveless, he realised that for he and Zayn it had only ever been a matter of time. It had taken them too long to finally figure it out, and when it hit home it was only followed by fear and defiance and refusal. For too long they circled each other while filling their lives with women and partying and bad behaviour that only served as a distraction to delay the inevitable, but they were young. They had buried their heads in the sand to escape something that scared them both, but when Liam looked back he couldn’t figure out how he had ever gotten by without Zayn.

A few years ago they broke up, and for two months Liam couldn’t breathe. All of a sudden he couldn’t tie his shoelaces or iron a shirt, and he despised that he had become one of those people who was just the other half. He had always aspired to be so much, but he was no longer a person in his own right, just the second part of somebody else and therefore no longer intact when that somebody left. When Zayn was back in his arms bursting with tears and apologies, Liam realised it wasn’t that he was only half a person without Zayn, but just a shoddy version of himself. Without Zayn he’d been fumbling around through life, eyes failing to adjust to the darkness as he tripped over obstacles in his way, but then Zayn had turned up with a flash light and a game plan and suddenly Liam could see where he was going.

Looking at Zayn reminded Liam of how well everything had turned out and how irrational the relentless worrying was. Everything felt so easy and safe now, but as Zayn slowly made his way towards Liam through the high-ceilinged room filled with friends and flowers and a bit too much gold decor he wondered how, after this long, Zayn could still look at him with such compassion in his eyes. Sometimes it took him by surprise when he saw Zayn moving towards him just to stand by his side, even after so many years, and carrying with him the promise of more years to come.

It was hard to believe he was one of the lucky people who got it all so right. 

“Stop thinking,” Zayn smirked as he stopped right in front of Liam, hands tucked into the pockets of his immaculate suit, and Liam drank in every detail before him. 

He thought about how Zayn had looked at 17 and how he had changed through the years; more solid now, taller and with more tattoos, a stronger jaw but still utterly exquisite. In the back of his mind he acknowledged the instinctive smile that had stretched across his face, always brought on by Zayn regardless of time or place, but as always he didn’t care to fight it.

“Stop thinking and start drinking,” Zayn teased again, scrunching up his nose in a silent snigger, and Liam couldn’t help himself. 

He tilted through the small space that separated them and slid his fingers around Zayn’s collar, thumbs in their favourite spot against the stubble on his jaw, and he rested his lips against Zayn’s cheek. With a quiet laugh Zayn relaxed into him, and he felt the cheek beneath his lips settle into a soft smile. 

Resisting the urge to stay right there all day, Liam left a couple more kisses on Zayn’s cheek with a quiet hum before he pulled back.

“You’re a bad influence,” Liam murmured.

Zayn grinned back at him. “Bradford bad boy.”

“You can take the boy out of Bradford,” Liam began, skimming his palms lightly over Zayn’s jaw, “but he still won’t shave his face. Not even for a wedding.”

Zayn dropped his head back with laughter, and Liam was amazed by how far away his doubts felt as soon as he heard that sound. Sometimes he held the weight of the world on his shoulders, but then Zayn would never be far away, laughing with ease and painting the colour back into the world. 

“I left it because I know you like it,” Zayn attempted with the cheeky glint in his eye that had never left, despite age and time. 

“Oh, it’s my fault, is it?” Liam played, leaning back against the bar behind him, and Zayn nodded. “My bad, sorry ‘bout that.”

“It’s a sacrifice I’ll make for you,” he sighed as he pulled a hand out of his pocket to tug on Liam’s tie. He made a face at Liam, pouted lips and quirked eyebrows, eyes crossed for good measure. 

“Charming.”

“I had to look at about a hundred pictures of Josh’s weird baby just now, so that was my best impression,” Zayn laughed.

Liam sniggered. “That baby is so strange.”

“Imagine going through everything and then your baby comes out with a weird face.”

“Apparently the weird babies always grow up to be attractive adults though, so maybe it’s not so bad.”

Zayn raised an eyebrow at Liam. “So were you a hideous baby, or what?”

Liam laughed and gladly let Zayn steer him safely back into reality. It was easy to feel so far removed from normality and so far in over his head, especially when surrounded by the kind of people who had followed life’s rule book word for word. Marriage, mortgage, kids, mid-life crisis, and so on. It was a standard recipe that Liam had thought he was destined to adhere to, and then he had gotten on the wrong train and wound up in a complex world that spiralled and sped and didn’t offer a return ticket. But the spinning slowed when Zayn had become a solid part of his life, and when Zayn was finally in his arms he had stopped feeling dizzy at last. He looked down and saw Zayn’s fingers fiddling with his tie it felt like the most normal thing in the world. 

“Are you going to come and bust a move?” Zayn asked with a knowing smirk, tilting his head towards the dance floor.

“Cut a rug?” Liam offered.

“Drop it low?”

“You’ll have to get me a drink before I drop anything.”

Zayn shrugged and took the small step towards the bar, elbows propped against the dark wood and he leant into Liam. “Jäger Bomb? Shot of Patrón?”

“Perhaps just a humble whiskey,” Liam countered, amused, shaking his head at Zayn. “I haven’t had a Jäger Bomb in years.”

“Bacardi shots, then? Glad you suggested it,” Zayn turned to speak to the bartender as Liam draped an arm across his shoulders, earning him a playful elbow nudge to the ribs. 

“Need some liquid courage before I can be seen out there with you, MJ,” Liam said as Zayn turned back towards him.

“It’s okay, you can just awkwardly rub up against me.” 

“Great, thanks,” and Liam couldn’t help but smile.

It was always a simple glance at Zayn that would make Liam feel relieved he had stepped onto that train and taken the ride to four yeses and an extraordinary life. He could hardly believe he had gotten it all so right, and as Zayn handed him a glass of scotch, accompanied by the smile that was so familiar to him and yet still so vital, it was hard for Liam to remember what life had been like before the whirlwind picked up and never slowed down.


End file.
